'Club Penguin': Waddle they think of next?

By Francis Ma

Friday

Jun 22, 2007 at 12:01 AMJun 22, 2007 at 7:16 PM

Club Penguin is the latest in the long line of virtual worlds on the Internet, only this one is geared specifically to pre-MySpace crowd, kids age 7 to 14, although bored and curious adults are welcome to join.

Imagine a world where penguins roam free, look for treasure, and profanity has been stricken from daily vocabulary.

It’s a world obsessed with games and various missions, each garnering you coins because, in this world, money can buy you happiness.

This utopian dream isn’t in a novel, a movie or even in Canada. It’s on your computer, a mere Web site away.

And if there’s a preteen in your house, he or she may be waddling across this virtual ice burg right now.

Club Penguin is the latest in the long line of virtual worlds on the Internet, only this one is geared specifically to pre-MySpace crowd, kids age 7 to 14, although bored and curious adults are welcome to join.

Launched in 2005, Club Penguin is free to join, provided you have the latest version of Flash on your computer and no firewalls blocking it. For an added $5.95 a month, your utopian penguin world can be customized with clothing, sunglasses, guitars and even a pet Puggle (a fluffy ball of fur that smiles and bounces).

Since last year, Club Penguin’s membership has soared 545 percent, making it a viable player in the ever-expanding market of virtual worlds.

A virtual world is a free roaming, digital landscape where users explore the area through avatars (your digital self). These worlds have soared in popularity with sites like Second Life (a more adult-oriented world where some users can actually make a living) and Webkinz (another kid-oriented site that first requires users to purchase a stuffed dog or other critter with a secret code).

Club Penguin stands out from the rest of them. It offers the games and chat capabilities, but combined that with a much-touted security system, an attractive aspect for any parent who understands the nature of the internet or who has seen too many of Dateline’s “To Catch a Predator” shows.

“Even with the incredible success we’ve had, the priority of the site remains safety,” says spokeswoman Karen Mason. “There are no ads, no cross-promotions and a filter system.”

What the game has plenty of are colorful, waddling penguins with a penchant for dancing, games, and making as many friends as possible (friendships are forged with a click of a button).

You begin the process by first naming and decorating your penguin (don’t bother with “Phelange the Penguin” since it is forever taken). Once done, you pick a server and you’re off, transported to a beach with a number of waddling penguins who talk to you via cartoon bubbles. (Most common conversation: “Hi,” followed by “Hi.”)

Once you start exploring (either by walking around or transporting from a handy map) you encounter such places as a hockey rink, a pizza parlor, a nightclub, a café and abandoned pirate ships. If you advance in the game, you’ll go on missions and unlock other areas to explore.

“I like the variety and the storylines within the game,” says Mason. “One of the most popular storylines is with Captain Rockhopper.”

Rockhopper is a pirate penguin and the one celebrity within the game. He appears roughly every two months and when he does, members can board his ship, read about his adventures in his diary and purchase special items from him using virtual money won while playing the virtual games.

But it’s the security system behind the game that has garnered Club Penguin praise from the gaming industry, parents and DM Toddington and Company Ltd. (an organization that trains police forces on Internet sites). It also holds the distinction of being one of the only Web sites approved by the Better Business Bureau.

And while the immensely popular site is entertaining, many critics have pointed to the lack of educational elements within the game.

“There is a socializing aspect to the game,” says Mason. “We heard from a mother that her son, who has Asperger’s syndrome, uses the site to socialize with kids he wouldn’t be able to in the real world. There was also another boy who had a bone marrow transplant and kept in touch with this friends and family through the game.”

Mason calls Club Penguin “training wheels for the world we live in,” meaning that society now communicates more with technology than with real people (or real penguins).

David Brickham, a research scientist for the Center on Media and Child Health at Children’s Hospital in Boston, has monitored Club Penguin and said the site had “done a good job” in terms of security, but worries that the game can be too engaging.

“I think you have to be worried about the amount of time kids spend on this game,” Brickham said. “If all they do is this, if they are using it as some kind of escape, then those are big concerns.”

This has also been a complaint among parents and Club Penguin’s makers plan to address that concern this summer when they add a timer feature, which will allow mom or dad to set time limits on the game.

There is still the worry of Club Penguin being a virtual world and that nothing can truly replace interacting with real people.

“I don’t think kids are going to learn sophisticated social integration with these games,” says Brickham. “When you exist in an anonymous world, there aren’t many social repercussions to acting negatively (bad behavior does lead to a penguin being banned). There are lots of opportunities to be asocial.”

www.clubpenguin.com

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